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The Lounge What is on Your Mind? A chronology of computing power Post 302469576 by figaro on Sunday 7th of November 2010 03:34:28 AM
Old 11-07-2010
A chronology of computing power

This is a brief overview of where computing performance is heading. The exponential rise in CPU performance as predicted by Moore's law is apparently also true for individual components, at least when looking at historical data.

RAM / working memory
The following is an overview of the year in which the first computer came to the mass market with the given amount of working memory. The numbers are extrapolated to reflect that there is a thousandfold increase every 17 years.

Code:
Year	Name 	Symbol	Exponent
1971	kilo- 	k	3
1988	mega- 	M	6
2005	giga- 	G	9
2022	tera- 	T	12
2039	peta- 	P	15
2056	exa- 	E	18
2073	zetta- 	Z	21
2090	yotta- 	Y	24
2107	xona- 	X	27
2124	weka- 	W	30
2141	vunda- 	V	33
2158	uda- 	U	36
2175	treda- 	TD	39
2192	sorta- 	S	42
2209	rinta- 	R	45
2226	quexa- 	Q	48
2243	pepta- 	PP	51
2260	ocha- 	O	54
2277	nena- 	N	57
2294	minga- 	MI	60
2311	luma- 	L	63

The years may be one year off and the exponential growth has only been achieved for 3 generations, so the extrapolation may start to deviate substantially after another 5 generations or so. Hence, this should only serve as an idea as to when you will be able to buy your first exa-computer, roughly.
Also note that a luma-computer would require the same amount of atoms as the earth is built up of.

HDD / mechanical storage
There appears to be a 17 year cycle for storage devices too. The list below contains the years in which the first storage device came to the mass market with given amount of capacity:

Code:
1957	3	K
1974	6	M
1991	9	G
2008	12	T
2025	15	P
2042	18	E

Perhaps grid storage or cloud storage will replace the majority of local storage in the next 10 years, even for home computers. By 2042 there may be no HDD needed for any computer as mechanical devices for storage will have been replaced by other means of storage, making these numbers meaningless.

FLOPS
The following article assumes an 11-year cycle in thousandfold increases in computing power:
All hail Roadrunner's petaflop record; now, what about the exaflop? - Computerworld

Code:
1986	9	G
1997	12	T
2008	15	P
2019	18	E
2030	21	Z
2041	24	Y
2052	27	X
2063	30	W

 

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cpc_access(3CPC)				    CPU Performance Counters Library Functions					  cpc_access(3CPC)

NAME
cpc_access - test access CPU performance counters SYNOPSIS
cc [ flag... ] file... -lcpc [ library... ] #include <libcpc.h> int cpc_access(void); DESCRIPTION
Access to CPU performance counters is possible only on systems where the appropriate hardware exists and is correctly configured. The cpc_access() function must be used to determine if the hardware exists and is accessible on the platform before any of the interfaces that use the counters are invoked. When the hardware is available, access to the per-process counters is always allowed to the process itself, and allowed to other processes mediated using the existing security mechanisms of /proc. RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, cpc_access() returns 0. Otherwise, it returns -1 and sets errno to indicate the error. By default, two common errno values are decoded and cause the library to print an error message using its reporting mechanism. See cpc_seterrfn(3CPC) for a description of how this behavior can be modified. ERRORS
The cpc_access() function will fail if: EAGAIN Another process may be sampling system-wide CPU statistics. ENOSYS CPU performance counters are inaccessible on this machine. This error can occur when the machine supports CPU performance coun- ters, but some software components are missing. Check to see that all CPU Performance Counter packages have been correctly installed. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |ATTRIBUTE TYPE |ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |MT-Level |MT-Safe | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Interface Stability |Obsolete | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
cpc(3CPC), cpc_open(3CPC), cpc_seterrfn(3CPC), libcpc(3LIB), proc(4), attributes(5) NOTES
The cpc_access() function exists for binary compatibility only. Source containing this function will not compile. This function is obsolete and might be removed in a future release. Applications should use cpc_open(3CPC) instead. SunOS 5.11 28 Mar 2005 cpc_access(3CPC)
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